Yet Another Morrowind Thread

[Bad Sector]

I'm not sure i'd say Morrowind's UI to be pioneering. There were games with floating windows ever since the original Macintosh and was common in Windows 3.x for games to use floating windows. It became less common in Win9x times but there were still games using them. While those were using the OS UIs, there were also some games that used their own UIs, like Legacy: Realm of Terror and Chris Sawyer's games like Transport Tycoon Deluxe.

 

[MWaser]

The way Morrowind's UI is integrated into the game is what's important. For one, it doesn't have excessive sorting tabs. For two, it has very little empty space - minimal icons where text is displayed and icons only when icons are present (inventory fitting in a tight grid as a result, and spellls being a very compact list). For three, the fact it opens instantly without any transitions makes it extremely convenient to use for any situation.

With how well it is organized for mouse usage, I'm really amazed that they were developing the game simultaneously for xbox because while I personally have never tried console Morrowind ( ) I can't imagine this mouse-optimized UI is very convenient for controllers.

 

[Bad Sector]

On Xbox the UI is a bit different. You toggle the UI with B or Select and there aren't floating windows but instead each "window" covers almost the entire screen and you flip through them using the trigger buttons. Elements inside the window are selected using the dpad. Overall it isn't that different than what you'd see in a modern gamepad friendly game, which i guess shows how flexible Morrowind's UI system is (since it does look like it is the same UI system just configured a bit differently).

 

[Funposter]

so some retard applied normal maps to lougian's shitty, mismatched texture pack and people think it looks good?

edit: i also really adore these people who think that shadows should appear PITCH BLACK at all times as if ambient and reflected light do not exist, almost like these people never leave their rooms to observe the real world

 

[cretin]

Hm, the art assets look good but IMO the lighting is off, and especially indoor areas need more ambient lighting (they're too dark). Outdoors also look too bright and clean (kinda closer to Oblivion's environments)... Morrowind isn't that clean and bright looking.

the lighting is definitely off, most the contrast IMO and the shadows are too dark, but the overall improvement to image depth is fantastic for me.

 

[Thal]

which hell did they pull this inventory UI from though

is it blasphemy that i think that UI is better? Guys, morrowind's UI was garbage

Yes, terrible waste of space in top left and bottom right boxes, while the inventory is utterly fubar.

 

[Avarize]

Hm, the art assets look good but IMO the lighting is off, and especially indoor areas need more ambient lighting (they're too dark). Outdoors also look too bright and clean (kinda closer to Oblivion's environments)... Morrowind isn't that clean and bright looking.

the lighting is definitely off, most the contrast IMO and the shadows are too dark, but the overall improvement to image depth is fantastic for me.

"Bright lights pretty" has always been the pinnacle of TES graphical modding.

 

[Bad Sector]

The list inventory is still a downgrade from the original grid, this better be optional too. I can understand the interest of sorting but that's something most people will get by without just fine, this is way more loss than gain.

Considering it is a mod, i guess you could just remove it. But why do you see the list as a downgrade? The ability to sort per name, weight, value and even weight:value (last column) and find something from its name by quickly skimming through the list when you have a lot of items are all very useful. The only thing the grid has is that you can fit more objects on the same space, but with Morrowind's icons looking very similar to each other it is hard to spot specific items this way.

 

[cretin]

Hm, the art assets look good but IMO the lighting is off, and especially indoor areas need more ambient lighting (they're too dark). Outdoors also look too bright and clean (kinda closer to Oblivion's environments)... Morrowind isn't that clean and bright looking.

the lighting is definitely off, most the contrast IMO and the shadows are too dark, but the overall improvement to image depth is fantastic for me.

"Bright lights pretty" has always been the pinnacle of TES graphical modding.

Well yeah because morrowind and oblivion dont (didnt) have any, and theres really only so much you can do with textures and meshes alone. Have you ever played STALKER without dynamic lighting? Looks like shit. With dynamic lighting its shelf life for visuals lasted a very long time.

 

[Avarize]

Hm, the art assets look good but IMO the lighting is off, and especially indoor areas need more ambient lighting (they're too dark). Outdoors also look too bright and clean (kinda closer to Oblivion's environments)... Morrowind isn't that clean and bright looking.

the lighting is definitely off, most the contrast IMO and the shadows are too dark, but the overall improvement to image depth is fantastic for me.

"Bright lights pretty" has always been the pinnacle of TES graphical modding.

Well yeah because morrowind and oblivion dont (didnt) have any, and theres really only so much you can do with textures and meshes alone. Have you ever played STALKER without dynamic lighting? Looks like shit. With dynamic lighting its shelf life for visuals lasted a very long time.

Lighting is very important in all visual arts but more bloom or very sharp shadows aren't exactly the solution.

 

[DraQ]

Morrowind doesn't just have floating windows. You can toggle each windows on and off (so you can set it to emulate tabbed view if that's what you'd prefer), move stuff between world and inventory and even pin windows to your view to keep them open while walking around.

Anyone who doesn't consider Morrowind's UI to be the absolute pinnacle of cRPG UI is likely an inbred moron.

 

[prengle]

Morrowind doesn't just have floating windows. You can toggle each windows on and off (so you can set it to emulate tabbed view if that's what you'd prefer), move stuff between world and inventory and even pin windows to your view to keep them open while walking around.

Anyone who doesn't consider Morrowind's UI to be the absolute pinnacle of cRPG UI is likely an inbred moron.

draq, morrowind's floaty window-based ui is still one of my favorite huds from any game (anything that reminds me of classic windows gives me a boner i guess), but you've never flailed your mouse around like a spastic for 10 minutes before while trying to find that one Exquisite Potion of Healing in your gigantic, unlabeled stash of potions? granted this isn't an issue anymore with mods like ui expansion, but regardless morrowind's ui stil isn't perfect. it's just better than all of the consolized shit that came afterwards

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[ERYFKRAD]

any mod that makes throwing daggers fun?

Yeah Assassin's creed

 

[Bad Sector]

Morrowind doesn't just have floating windows. You can toggle each windows on and off (so you can set it to emulate tabbed view if that's what you'd prefer), move stuff between world and inventory and even pin windows to your view to keep them open while walking around.

Anyone who doesn't consider Morrowind's UI to be the absolute pinnacle of cRPG UI is likely an inbred moron.

IIRC (it has been a while since i played it) NWN2's UI also allowed hiding/showing, resizing and moving around individual elements (it was one of the first things i noticed compared to NWN1 - and other Aurora-based games - because the one thing i disliked in NWN1 was not being able to move the UI elements).

The only thing i haven't seen in other games is pinning, but TBH the only window i ever felt the need to pin was the map and that is because the default minimap which is shown if you do not pin the map has a very small area.

 

[DraQ]

any mod that makes throwing daggers fun?

Tribunal.

draq, morrowind's floaty window-based ui is still one of my favorite huds from any game (anything that reminds me of classic windows gives me a boner i guess), but you've never flailed your mouse around like a spastic for 10 minutes before while trying to find that one Exquisite Potion of Healing in your gigantic, unlabeled stash of potions?

I have not for two reasons:

• Potions of different strengths have distinctive looks
  
• I happen to have mastered both the alphabet and binary search

 

[Stella Brando]

 

[Chippy]

I never did finish Morrowind, but with all of this talk about the Skywind conversion, thought I'd see if there were any other graphical updates. So I go to the homepage of the Nexus:
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/
And one of the top 'hot' or most downloaded mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/48541

An excerpt:
"Why?
Because, for many, especially for many women, it can be deeply uncomfortable to have their player character -- their avatar in this world -- subjected to sexual harassment. For individuals who have been subjected to sexual violence (and 1/6 of all women have been), this can trigger severe distress. This is not about banning topics, or particular words, but about making the game more comfortable for a large portion of the population."

One of the release notes: As of 1.1.1, now includes options for removing whistles, which could easily be taken as appraising.

I suppose the saving grace (and an example that maybe there is some hope for the human race) is that it currently has x130 thumbs up to x510 thumbs down. It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if the human race is still actually evolving.

 

[Butter]

Those aren't thumbs up or down. That's 130 endorsements against 510 downloads. You could interpret that as 380 downloading the file and not thinking it deserves an endorsement, but the reality is a large part of the Nexus userbase never bothers to endorse anything. 25% of all downloaders giving an endorsement is actually a really good ratio. I can't get half that on any of my mods.

 

[Chippy]

Butter ...oh.

 

[zool]

For those interested, I've updated my mod list focusing on lore-friendly RP-oriented, dialogue, immersion and faction expansions mods for Morrowind.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/another-morrowind-mod-list-rp-and-content-mods.131433/

 

[Sigourn]

I just finished updating my Morrowind++ guide.

I know the Codex will freak out at the 160 or so mods included, but just for your information:

• The amount of conflicts is really mininal. As in, nothing to worry about, which is more than I can say about so many modding guides out there for any Bethesda game, short of the extremely spartan "just 10 mods" guides.
• It's modular, and to the best of my ability. That means that the Dialogue section not only contains mods that add new dialogue, but also mods that add new features while adding a shitload of dialogue to boot (should that be a deterrant).
• The amount of graphic mods is really low for a Morrowind guide. It's divided into three sections: "essentials" (mostly mods that add extremely noticeable new features), "visual effects" (mods that a few neat effects), and "other visual tweaks" (mostly mesh and texture replacers for some of the worst offenders in the game, plus for consistency with MGE XE).
• If you just follow the "Core" section you will have to install about 60 mods, but again, if you are an ABSOLUTE PURIST you can get around with installing about 10 mods between bug fixes and AI upscaled textures.

I'm willing to listen to suggestions on what could be removed that aren't just "160 mods is too much, make it 20".

 

[Don Peste]

I'll wait for Morrowind#.

 

[luj1]

I like it.

 

[luj1]

After skimming the text I found around 30 mods that are unnecessary in my opinion. Will list them when I find some spare time. There is also a more optimal blood texture.

I would also suggest a few simple mods which are literally 1kb yet profoundly improve gameplay (like locking most smuggler hideouts and disabling resting in exteriors).

Some simple GMTS tweaks can do wonders as well.

Lastly you need a clean retroactive HP mod and static multipliers on level up, so you can focus on playing the game instead of min maxing. These two were the biggest core system issues in Morrowind since its inception in my opinion and are indefensible.